Kim Dotcom taunts US law enforcement via Twitter

The Megaupload founder takes his story social.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is taking his public-relations campaign to Twitter, where he's busy poking fun at the US effort to try him for criminal copyright infringement. He is also posting pictures of his wife, children, and luxury cars from his mansion in New Zealand, where he is on bail awaiting an extradition hearing.

In just a few days and 76 tweets, Dotcom’s Twitter account has garnered over 30,000 followers. Dotcom, for his part, only follows President Barack Obama.

Dotcom’s associates Finn Batato, Matthias Ortmann, and Bram van der Kolk, who are co-accused of copyright conspiracy by the US, also feature in his Twitter timeline.

The tweet storm comes amid a new round of legal wrangling in Dotcom’s federal case in Virginia. His defense team, lead by Ira Rothken, filed a rebuttal (.pdf) in an ongoing fight over the personal liability of Dotcom and the others, who prosecutors says are responsible for around $500 million in damages. The defense also argues that the court has no personal jurisdiction over the defendants.

According to Rothken, who visited New Zealand three days ago, the US froze the assets of Megaupload without serving the company itself, which Rothken argues should force the dismissal of the entire case.

The Dotcom legal team also objects to a US government request that a hearing scheduled for Friday be adjourned due to members of the prosecution team being out of town on that date. "[T]he government should not be permitted to forestall adjudication" after it has "laid waste to Defendants’ business, deprived them of tens of millions of dollars in assets along with their ability to earn a living and branded them as criminals whose liberty is confined."

74 Reader Comments

While it is patently obvious that Kim Dotcom did profit from his business, whether he did so outside the confines of the law remains to be seen.

At the very least, the U.S. Government's handling of the case has been abysmally unprofessional.

I'm not defending Kim Dotcom; he seems to be essentially the business version of a professional troll. I am however, defending his right under our rule of law to a fair, impartial and expedient trial. All three of those concepts are in jeopardy with the way the case has been handled.

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

The difference the piratebay, they host the torrent of files, they don't promote illegal file sharing they just host them. Make money off the ad traffic and selling things with their name. This guy was charging people for this, and he took advantage of an illegal business model.

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

The difference the piratebay, they host the torrent of files, they don't promote illegal file sharing they just host them. Make money off the ad traffic and selling things with their name. This guy was charging people for this, and he took advantage of an illegal business model.

While it is patently obvious that Kim Dotcom did profit from his business, whether he did so outside the confines of the law remains to be seen.

I'm pretty sure NZ has laws...

felix26591 wrote:

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

Did he break NZ law? That's where he was and that's whose law should apply. If not, he isn't a criminal and the content wasn't illegal.

very few accused people actually get justice. most get hung out as an example and punished sternly. The only accused person I can think of who appropriate treatment lately was the Florida face eating zombie. I hate zombies.

This man is a arrogant jackass and constantly self aggrandizing. He deserves universal scorn for being the way he is. I cannot stand that my morality prevents me from being able to support the injustice being heaped on him, though.

This man is a arrogant jackass and constantly self aggrandizing. He deserves universal scorn for being the way he is.

There's no law against being an asshole. He is the wronged one here, if the US actually had a decent case we would have seen it by now. They overstepped and now he is rubbing their faces in it,as they deserve.

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

The difference the piratebay, they host the torrent of files, they don't promote illegal file sharing they just host them. Make money off the ad traffic and selling things with their name. This guy was charging people for this, and he took advantage of an illegal business model.

I can't say I like the guy at all, or that I disagree with you, but it's amazing to see how much money the studios have left on the table for failing to properly monetize the Internet. It seems that many pirates are willing to pay for the right service, but the right service simply isn't being offered to them.

One of the best ways to curb piracy is to make content available online legitimately, but this hardly gets any discussion, which is depressing.

Yeah, I'm actually starting to like his behavior. What he did may be zigzagging across the borderline of legal, and his past actions don't endear him to me, but the over-zealous U.S. prosecution and his snarky responses are really helping to make him a bit of a folk hero. I've read way too many negative things on the handling of his case; I think they were expecting a response like they took down a drug kingpin, and didn't worry about the P.R. side. (After all, drug lords also primarily supply people with illegal goods, but not too many people are sympathetic when one gets taken down by law enforcement.) If his case gets enough good publicity, they risk losing more than this case.

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

The difference the piratebay, they host the torrent of files, they don't promote illegal file sharing they just host them. Make money off the ad traffic and selling things with their name. This guy was charging people for this, and he took advantage of an illegal business model.

Not a fan of the individual in any way, shape, or form - and on the whole am not a fan of the business model that megaupload had.

BUT

The legal circus here has somehow, astonishingly, made me land on his side of the debate. I honestly WANT to agree with prosecution against him, but it seems like they're doing everything in their power to make sure they're acting as ineptly as possible to make a lawsuit impossible.

I wouldn't really call this "taunting"- like some others pointed out, the pictures are pretty funny, as they address the ridiculousness of the prosecution's case. Taunting has too much of a negative connotation for such funny pictures.

I'm on Dotcom's team. Piracy exists because media is still hard to reach in places outside North America where there's no Hulu or HBO Go. I bet most of the people that used Megaupload were outside NA. Instead of spending millions to take a man to court they could spend that money on giving a better service.

I'm on Dotcom's team. Piracy exists because media is still hard to reach in places outside North America where there's no Hulu or HBO Go. I bet most of the people that used Megaupload were outside NA. Instead of spending millions to take a man to court they could spend that money on giving a better service.

Oh, there is some universal right to entertainment now? I must've missed that memo from God.

I'm on Dotcom's team. Piracy exists because media is still hard to reach in places outside North America where there's no Hulu or HBO Go. I bet most of the people that used Megaupload were outside NA. Instead of spending millions to take a man to court they could spend that money on giving a better service.

Oh, there is some universal right to entertainment now? I must've missed that memo from God.

Whether he's guilty or not is completely irrelevant to the central fact here, which is that the case has been grievously mishandled by the authorities in pretty much every way imaginable, and it should fail just based on that. I mean seriously, however atrocious he may seem to us, proper procedure is pretty much the foundation of a legal system we can trust.

This guy even if they can't lay charges on him is a criminal. He made money by charging people for better bandwith and a pro account to be able to share illegal downloads. If he made a buck of advertising or selling things like t-shirts and mugs like piratebay do, I would be for him. But this guy made millions by offering people a service to basically download illegal content and also promoting illegal content be uploaded. This guy shouldn't get as much jail time as they are trying to pin on him it's ridiculous, but he should have his fortune taken away.

The difference the piratebay, they host the torrent of files, they don't promote illegal file sharing they just host them. Make money off the ad traffic and selling things with their name. This guy was charging people for this, and he took advantage of an illegal business model.

I'm sorry, all I got from that was 'it's perfectly ok for a site to facilitate piracy, as long as the advertisers are bearing the brunt of the cost.

Did I reach the right conclusion?

Also, can't help but thinking that this childish behaviour won't do anything but make his situation worse when he inevitably ends up in the US.

I for one don't think it matters if he's an asshole or not. It's completely irrelevant. Is he guilty or innocent of the crimes he's being accused of? If yes, he should get what he deserves. If not, he deserves to walk away a free man. And regardless, everything should go through the proper channels, as it would for any other average joe.

As for Kim Dotcom, the best way for him to handle an repressive government is to lay his situation up front and share his bad experiences with others. The government and the cops wouldn't want the matter spread out too much because it won't look look on them.

The key point is cops wanted that person quietly take the losses and sufferings and not to say a word publicly. When Kim showed their ugliness that's when the cops back-off. But when you kept the whole thing silence they'll keep on messing with you until you got buried six feet under and that'll be too late.

In my little neck of the woods, there is a broad inquiry commission (adjourned for summer) into the totally corrupted construction industry, public contracts and engineering firms bribery, price fixing, overcharging, and backdoor political party financing - not to mention worker's unions shenanigans. That is but one tiny, tiny fraction of all the criminal activity conducted in broad day light with the complicity of ordinary people all around the world, everyday single day.

White collar assholes are getting away with money laundering, ponzi schemes, bailouts and fiscal evasion by amounts thousands of times what KD is accused of "stealing". Yet he is being called everything but Adolf around here. What is this, why is that ? He is a businessman. He played and won a few toys. Does that make him an arms dealer ? He didn't make his money patent-farming or cashing life insurance policy of its deceased employees. He did what most shrewed capitalist does : He found and exploited an angle, albeit at the threshold of legality.